


Calmer Waters

by mothdogs



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Family Dinners, Fluff, I just want River and Eleven to act like they're friends and actually like each other lol, Tag-teaming and problem-solving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:42:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24481453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothdogs/pseuds/mothdogs
Summary: The Doctor pops in to see the Ponds for dinner (arriving late, of course)--but there's an unexpected guest in the garden.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor & Amy Pond & Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/River Song
Comments: 13
Kudos: 75





	Calmer Waters

“ _Amy!_ ” 

The Doctor threw his arms out, preparing to give her a hug when the door to the Pond residence swung inwards to invite him, but it was Rory who stood silhouetted in the dusky autumn light and raised his eyebrows in greeting. The Doctor adjusted course quickly as he swept Rory into the hug instead. 

“Good to see you, good to see you,” the Doctor said as he rocked over the threshold and released Rory. “What has it been, two months? Three?”

“Er--” Rory began, but Amy’s voice answered from behind him, “Four, actually.”

She stepped into the foyer, dressed in a loose checked green top with her hair pulled back into a low braid. Her voice was chagrined, but there was a smile dancing in her eyes. The look of her made the Doctor’s chest ache with happiness, that _humany-wumany_ feeling again.

“Four months, four months of living your precious little lives in scenic Leadworth,” the Doctor said with a bit of a groan as he hugged Amy tightly, taking care not to crush her stomach even in his excitement. She hugged him back, briefly tucking her nose into the familiar curve of his shoulder, then sidestepped the Doctor and bopped Rory on the head with a wooden spoon. 

“The pasta’s not going to stir itself, mister,” she said, twiddling the spoon expectantly as she held it out to him. 

Rory, who had ducked from her tap as he finished latching the front door, took the spoon as he kissed the corner of her mouth. “As you say, _dearest_ ,” he said with a long-suffering eye roll, then slipped between them to walk back to the kitchen. “Alfredo again, Doctor. Third night this week!” 

“I am eating for two now, you know,” Amy called after him defensively, and his chuckle echoed down the hall.

Amy turned to the Doctor and rubbed his coat sleeve. “It’s not so cold in here,” she said, “take that thing off. Come in!” 

As he shrugged out of his worn tweed blazer and turned to hang it on the hook by the door, he bit his lip for a second. He felt some trepidation about the matter of Amy’s pregnancies—a feeling he well deserved—but as far as he could tell, with the Ponds being here and living their Pond-y lives without him, this was a thoroughly human baby. “So the, er, the baby’s coming along?” he hazarded, turning back to look at her. 

“Oh, you wouldn’t _believe_ the kicks he gets in,” Amy said with a groan, her eyes to the ceiling as she rubbed her belly. “Perhaps he'll be a football prodigy,” she said, her eyes swinging back down with a mischievous light in them. "Think you could show him some moves?” 

“Pond, I would be _delighted_ ,” the Doctor said as he swept an arm around her shoulder and walked them toward the dining room. “Right, the baby, the _baby_ , but surely that’s not all? Tell me everything you’ve been--”

They rounded the corner to the dining room, which offered a view through a sliding glass door to the back patio and the garden beyond. His words died in his throat and he let his arm drop from Amy as he saw the glorious golden curls of River Song, lit more by the porch light than by the fading sunset as she worked in the dirt. Her back was to the door and she was bent over, occupied with something in her hand. The Doctor’s tongue suddenly felt too large for his mouth. 

“Ruh—River’s here? You didn’t tell me River was here!” He impulsively brought a hand up to straighten his bow tie, trying to remember when they’d last seen each other. From both of their frames of reference.

Amy nodded her head pertly as she said, “Yes, well, she is our daughter, she’s allowed to just… be here.” 

Rory leaned backwards from the stove and wiped a hand on his apron, smearing off a bit of red sauce. “She said something about an archaeological relic in the backyard. Used a scanner thing to locate it.” He shrugged and handed Amy the stirring spoon for her to taste. “D’you think it might be alien tech?”

A snort at that, and the Doctor glanced at River again. “Well, maybe. Awfully convenient for it to be located right in your backyard, though.”

“Under my flower bed, too!” Rory said in a pained voice, throwing a hand up in exasperation. “I told her she could dig there. As long as she re-plants the tulip bulbs.”

“That’s proper dad talk, that is,” the Doctor said, “making dinner, scolding your daughter over a flower bed…”

“I’ve been painting Anthony’s room, too,” Rory added. “But I like doing it. I’ve never really done… the proper dad stuff.” 

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something—a half-formed apology, perhaps—but Amy interrupted. “Here,” she said, reaching around Rory to pass the Doctor two cold beers from the counter beside the fridge. “Go take her one.” The Doctor wrinkled his nose at the alcohol, but accepted the dark glass bottles. Their condensation chilled his hands.

“And just _drink_ it, why don’t you,” Amy said when she saw his face. “It won’t kill you. It’s, I dunno, a bonding thing.”

“It’s not very good-tasting,” the Doctor said in a pout, but he didn’t resist as Amy steered him toward the patio door.

“That’s your wife,” she reminded him, “and my daughter. Now go be nice.” He heard the implied _Or else_ in her voice, and went.

*

River looked back at the sound of the Doctor sliding the patio door sliding shut, and her expression was hard for him to make out in the blue light of dusk. She was wearing a pair of faded grayish overalls and a pink shirt which was pushed back to the elbows. Her knees and gloved hands were caked in dirt, and as the Doctor drew closer, he could see that she was surrounded by a trowel, a brush, a few muddy rocks, and a small laptop with what looked like a grid glowing and pulsing on the screen. She threw a hand out suddenly as he neared, dirt flicking off her glove in an arc towards his pant-leg. 

“ _Watch!_ ” she cried, then, in a slightly calmer voice, “Watch your ankles, there’s a hole there.”

He looked down and said bemusedly, “Unfortunate thing to have to use regeneration energy on. Thanks.” He stepped lightly over the hole, then stooped to kiss her cheek, which she proffered from her kneeling position on the ground. 

The Doctor stood again to survey the extent of the damage to Rory’s flower beds with a squint. There were what looked like tulip bulbs scattered all around, their roots trailing dirt clods. He took a long breath in, appreciating Earth in autumn with all its scents--the slight dampness of the grass, leaves starting to moulder, and the smoke from a neighboring bonfire, perhaps. And something sweeter, too--maybe like a berry, or a flower, but faint.

“You knew I was coming, then?” he asked.

“Of course I did. Mother was in a suspiciously good mood.”

“Better than her normal mood when you come ‘round for a visit by yourself?”

“Oh, it’s close,” River said, a mischievous smile in her eyes as she looked away from her computer and up at him. “Actually, sometimes I quite think she likes me better than you, since at least _I_ show up on time.”

“Oi!” he yelped, half-wounded, but he mirrored her smile. “It’s not my fault the TARDIS wanted to take a detour. For a few weeks.”

“Few months, more like,” River said as she removed her thick gloves and tucked her hair back over her shoulder. “Although _maybe_ if you knew how to fly her properly…”

The Doctor recognized her teasing tone for what it was, and dropped to sit on the dirt beside her, his long legs folded in awkwardly. One hand still held the beer bottles that knocked together, while the other hand reached out to poke River lightly in the ribs. She shied away from the tickle, giggling and trying to ignore him. “Mmh, and I suppose you could give me some flying lessons, could you?” he asked into her hair as she squirmed. _There_. The scent of strawberry--her shampoo, then. He wanted to bury himself in the scent, in the moment. 

She batted his hand with her elbow and turned to face him square, her eyelids lowered in a look that made his insides wibbly. “Sweetie, I’ll give you lessons any time you like,” she breathed, and closed the space between their mouths with a kiss. 

He returned her kiss with a hunger that surprised him, his free hand abandoning the bottles to the ground and reaching up to hold her cheek. His thumb ranged down her jawbone to feel the rabbit’s pulse beating in her neck. River responded to his touch, deepening the kiss, and leaned her head into his hand so that her soft hair brushed the side of his face. It was like she’d drawn curtains around them, and he was floating untethered on the scent of strawberries and the warmth of her skin. The Doctor opened his mouth slightly to slide his tongue between her teeth—

“ _Five minutes until dinner, you two!_ ”

They jerked apart at Amy’s shout, both turning to see her waving from the patio door at them. The Doctor raised a hand in acknowledgement as River huffed. “She did that on purpose.”

“She totally did,” the Doctor agreed. The growing cramp in his knee prompted him to shift and unfold his sitting position, clinking the bottles together and sending one rolling across the grass as he did so. River took one and held it up in the low light to read the label. 

“How did you know my favorite brand?” she asked, eyeing the Doctor with suspicion. He opened his mouth to pawn the drinks off on Amy, but closed it again, his jubilant mood not yet dissipated by the interruption.

“Spoilers,” he said simply, and favored her with a cheeky smirk. River laughed then, clear and bright like bells ringing, and the Doctor stored the sound up in his hearts.

“Fair play, Doctor,” she murmured, and leaned in to kiss his cheek before turning again to the computer, which had started to beep insistently. “Care to open mine while I deal with this?”

The Doctor Sonicked off the tops of the bottles ( _That’s a new one,_ came the thought) and said, “This… is what, exactly?”

River huffed and ran a hand through her hair, pulling it back and briefly exposing the soft curve of her neck. She pursed her lips and said, “It’s an artifact I first read about in the library of Gamma V. The Silurians were said to have buried a beacon for their molecular disperser near this latitude line before their hibernation period began. It’s buried deep, but I’m sure I could find it--” she smacked the computer halfheartedly--“if this damned thing could get a read.”

She turned at his silence to find the Doctor staring at her, eyes half-lidded, studying her profile. 

“What!” she snapped.

“You’re sexy when you talk science, Professor Song,” he said, and whipped his Sonic open. “No, strike that, you’re always sexy,” he continued under his breath as he checked a setting on the Sonic. “ _So!_ The disperser’s beacon would have been a non-terran ferromagnetic metal, I suppose?” 

She swallowed and nodded. “From what I can tell, yes. But this scanner isn’t advanced enough to sense non-terran metals. I left my good one back on Gamma.”

“No matter,” he said, and held a hand out expectantly. “Two Sonics should do the trick, I reckon.”

She blinked at him with her head slightly tilted, then her eyes widened in understanding. “Two Sonics on the scanner at the same time should be enough to reverse--”

“The polarity of the neutron flow, yes,” he finished with her, and smiled as she removed her Sonic from a belt flap. “Ready, then?”

“Setting 27-A,” she confirmed.

They leveled their Sonics at River’s computer, kneeling together in the dirt and deepening night. The twin glows shone like miniature stars as they reflected off the screen, which gave a jitter and a blip and then started to beep with a renewed pulse. 

“Gotcha,” she whispered, her eyes narrowed in a triumph that the Doctor savored. This was his River. River the archaeologist, River the go-getter. She got it.

Without warning, River launched herself up from the ground and retrieved her shovel. “Grab the sifting screen, my love,” she said as she walked nearly a meter to the left of her biggest already-dug hole. The Doctor found his feet and went to join her. 

“Sifting screen,” he grunted as he picked it up off the ground. “You dump your dirt and I sift it?”

“Right,” she said, but her eyes looked past his shoulder as she said, “Oh, Rory!”

“It’s--it’s, um, ‘Dad’ is alright, if you’d like,” Rory said, approaching the pair awkwardly, one potholder still on his hand as he waved.

“Of course.” River moved forward to stand with the Doctor. “Come see, dad,” she said easily as she waved him to the computer screen.

The Doctor noted Rory’s pleased smile as he examined the blipping grid on the scanner. River explained the artifact, then said, “The Doctor and I finally got the computer to read.”

_The Doctor and I_. Her words echoed in his ears. Another moment to remember, then. The Doctor reached out to hook his pinky through River’s and gave her questioning glance an affectionate look in answer. And like that they walked back up to the patio door, trailing Rory. 

*

For dinner, they had bowtie pasta.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Kass for brainstorming with me about Doc/River doing fun bonding activities! I just want them to be friends and enjoy each others company in a non-saving-the-universe capacity :') 
> 
> Find me on Tumblr and Twitter as @mothdogs!


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